Great blessings and much happiness to all my blogger friends in the New Year!

May 2012 be a good year for all of us!

Old Santa Fe

While Jake and Debbie were here, we had lunch with friends at Upper Crust Pizza in Santa Fe. Right next door is the oldest church in the United States, and the oldest house in the U.S. Both were closed when we were there, but we wandered around outside.

San Miguel Mission Church was built by Tlaxcalan Indians from Mexico in the early 1600s, under the direction of Fray Alonso de Benavides. The reredos (or altar screen) in the Mission dates from 1798 and is the oldest wooden reredos in New Mexico.







Street in front of San Miguel Mission:





The oldest house in the U.S., built in 1646, is right next door to San Miguel Church:

San Miguel Mission, Socorro, New Mexico

The city of Socorro, New Mexico is built in the center of a Spanish land grant. Socorro comes from the Spanish word "socorrer" (similar to the English word "succor") which translates as "to offer comfort" or "to aid". The Spanish arriving in the area in the late 1500s found friendly Indians who were willing to share their corn with them.

In the middle of Socorro, the San Miguel Mission church still exists as an active functioning church. Founded in 1598, it is one of the oldest Catholic churches in the United States. The church was founded and built (with help from local Indians) by Fray Alfonso Benevidez, who is called the Apostle of Socorro.

The church has been called the Mission de San Miguel since 1800. It has undergone many changes through the years, and was originally a structure in the adobe pueblo style, but now only bears a slight resemblance to the original style. to me it now has the look more of California's Spanish missions rather than New Mexico's.

We were there two weeks ago and I got these pictures: